Managing your open access costs

Last updated: 10 November 2017

The issue

Open access (OA) publishing requires new workflows and systems in order to track costs, particularly the article processing charges (APCs) paid to publishers to make articles open access via the ‘gold’ route. Any new systems and processes themselves incur administrative costs.

How we can help

We provide support and shared services to help you improve your processes, and negotiate with publishers on behalf of the sector, in order to save you money.

What you can do

Streamline workflows and processes

The costs of implementing OA face any institution involved in publishing research. These include investment in cross-institutional technical systems that support effective implementation, and in the human resource required to apply, manage and advocate potentially new OA workflows and processes.

Monitor your costs

Your institution needs reliable methods for monitoring research publications, and related APCs, in order to track the costs involved in implementing OA. Institutions vary in how this is managed. Some have existing research management systems adapted for this purpose. Others have more bespoke solutions involving spreadsheets or databases. Our Monitor Local service can help institutions record and report on their open access costs.

Take advantage of publishers’ payment options

Open access is leading to the emergence of various new payment models.

One model involves ‘offsetting’, where APC and subscription payments are managed together. The publisher agrees to ‘trade off’ APC payments against a reduction in the subscription, in order to avoid paying twice for the same content.